What is the value of entrepreneurial orientation on the network and performance? An examination in trade fairs context

Purpose – The purposeof thispaper isto examine the influenceof entrepreneurial orientation on the network and exhibitor ’ s performance. The entrepreneurial orientation is seen as a highly competitive factor for the company, which can foster its trade fair business. Design/methodology/approach – A survey-based quantitative approach was adopted, including a questionnaire ( n 5 362) applied to companies participating in trade fairs. To arrive at results, the study developed structural equations modeling techniques, using SPSS 24 and AMOS 20 software. Findings – Thestudydemonstratespositiveimpactsofentrepreneurialorientationonnetworkcapabilityand consequent exhibitor ’ s non-sales performance and exhibitor ’ s sales performance. A conceptual model is presented. Research limitations/implications – The study was carried out mainly on Portuguese companies, restricting its generalization. In addition, the exhibitor ’ s performance was measured based on the exhibitors ’ level of satisfaction and not on real sales results. Practical implications – The study offers a process which the results highlight such as innovativeness, proactivity, risk-taking,competitiveness and autonomy (dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation) as a mix of important ingredients for the exhibitor ’ s networking. The networking promotes intangible results (non-sales performance) that can generate sales (sales performance). Originality/value – The study is the first research to apply entrepreneurial orientation in the trade fair context and it also presents a relationship between non-sales performance and sales performance.


Introduction
Trade fairs are important marketing tools (Gerschewski, Evers, Nguyen, & Froese, 2020), where many experts and businesspeople (buyers/sellers) can meet up face to face in the same space and for a short time (Locatelli, Silveira, & Mourão, 2019;Sarmento, Farhangmehr, & Simões, 2015).The exhibitors are trade fair participants who physically exhibit their products and/or services to visitors, under the guidance of a specific organizing entity (Silva, 2014).
The main question is knowing how exhibitors can make the most of trade fairs.In this sense, entrepreneurial orientation emerged from literature as an important determinant for the development of business competence (Al Mamun, Fazal, & Muniady, 2019;Hooi, Ahmad, Amran, & Rahman, 2016;Martins & Rialp, 2013;Mantok, Sekhon, Sahi, & Jones, 2019;Rezvani, Lashgari, & Yadolahi Farsi, 2019).Particularly, Entrepreneurial Orientation can be a relevant resource for companies to operate in a competitive environment (Martins & Rialp, 2013) that is uncertain, dynamic and associated with social and business networks (Tajeddini, Martin, & Ali, 2020) such as trade fairs, where many rival firms are engaging (AUMA -Association of the German Trade Fair Industry, 2017; Maskell, 2014) and buyers/sellers interact and develop networking (Locatelli et al., 2019).
This way, incorporating entrepreneurial orientation in the context of trade fairs allows rekindling historically rooted theoretical perspectives such as innovation."The stagnation in these perspectives is largely inexplicable from an industry (managerial practice) point of view and as such, warrants closer examination in the future" (Tafesse & Skallerud, 2017, p. 26).Moreover, currently, it is suggested that the companies create an entrepreneur/innovative culture within the organization so that companies can achieve their goals (Nunes & Russo, 2019).
Considering that the aim of this research was to study the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on exhibitor's performance, this study is the first attempt to use the entrepreneurial orientation in the trade fair context and analyze its impact on the network and results of exhibitors, from a sales and non-sales perspective.So, this article aims to conduct an empirical study designing a comprehensive model, considering entrepreneurial orientation as a tool that can enhance the exhibitor's performance.
The paper consists of six sections.Following the introduction, Section 2 presents the theory and hypotheses development about entrepreneurial orientation construct and describes its relationship (network capability) to exhibitors' performance.Section 3 describes the methodology and empirical context where the survey was carried out.Section 4 reports the results and Section 5 discusses the findings.Finally, Section 6 presents the main conclusions, limitations and future research.

Examination in trade fairs context
2. Theory and hypotheses development 2.1 Entrepreneurial orientationconcept Entrepreneurial orientation is a general strategic posture toward entrepreneurship (Gupta & Gupta, 2015).Entrepreneurship is an act of innovation that involves empowering the existing resources of a new wealth-producing capacity (Drucker, 1985).However, entrepreneurship is presented in the literature in multiple perspectives, generating a multidimensional concept (Bula, 2012) and is used in many areas and contexts (Hoppe, 2016).However, regardless of the various applications, concepts and dimensions, the central issues in entrepreneurship involve uncertainty and risk-taking, innovation, perception and change (Essays, 2018).
In the business area, Miller (1983) states that an entrepreneurial company is one that is dedicated to product and market innovation, undertaking somewhat risky business and being proactive toward its competitors.Entrepreneurial orientation refers to the extent to which a company is entrepreneurial in its plans and activities, encompassing the company's processes, structures and behaviors (Stam & Elfring, 2008).Lumpkin and Dess (2001) defined entrepreneurial orientation as the companies' strategy-making process that engages in entrepreneurial activities (create new businesses, products, transformative decisions, etc.).However, Lumpkin and Dess (2001) pointed out that there is a difference between entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial orientation.The term entrepreneurial orientation refers to a series of dimensions toward organizational level (Lumpkin & Dess, 2001), that is, a company's capabilities (Yoon, Kim, & Dedahanov, 2018).
In general, the literature suggests entrepreneurial orientation as a strategic stance at the company's level encompassing three dimensions: risk, innovation and proactivity (Miller 1983;Miller & Friesen, 1982;Martins & Rialp, 2013;Mthanti & Ojah, 2017).The Innovation dimension can be interpreted as a tendency to engage creativity and experimentation by introducing new products/services and using technology through research and development in new processes (Mason, Floreani, Miani, Beltrame, & Cappelletto, 2015).Innovative practices can help increase the competitiveness of companies (Berne, Coda, Krakauer, & Donaire, 2019).The proactivity dimension is an anticipatory behavior seeking opportunities and characterized by the introduction of new products and services ahead of the competition (Mason et al., 2015).Moreover, a proactive attitude can facilitate the establishment and maintenance of network relationships with key stakeholders (Gerschewski et al., 2020).Finally, the Risk dimension involves bold action and adventure into the unknown, investing or committing significant resources to ventures in uncertain environments (Mason et al., 2015).
Recently, Fadda (2018) added two more dimensions: competitiveness and autonomy.The competitiveness dimension refers to the company's attitude when dealing with competitors, which means continuously monitor and combat their rivals' strategies.This concept partly clashes with Mason et al.'s (2015) proposal for proactivity.The autonomy dimension can be considered as a predisposition for the development of appropriate conditions and the subsequent implementation of innovative ideas (Fadda, 2018).
In summary: Entrepreneurial orientation is a path that entrepreneurs take to create a "new entry," which can be defined as the creation of a new business, new products or technology or a new market.It can also be defined as a set of strategies within a conceptual domain encompassing results at the organizational level, related to management preferences, beliefs and behaviors expressed through managers (Santos & Marinho, 2018, p. 121).

Entrepreneurial orientation as a tool for exhibitors
As mentioned initially, entrepreneurial activity currently contains multidimensionality of concepts (Bula, 2012) and is applied in various areas, circumstances and contexts INMR 19,1 (Hoppe, 2016).For instance, evidence from several recent studies shows that entrepreneurial orientation has a positive effect on business competence (Al Mamun et al., 2019;Hooi, et al., 2016;Knight, 2000;Martins & Rialp, 2013;Mantok et al., 2019).In fact, companies with a high degree of entrepreneurial orientation are more plausible to prosper (Maleki & Hajipour, 2020).Thereby, in general, entrepreneurial companies could operate more easily in demanding external environments against conservative companies (Martins & Rialp, 2013;Tajeddini et al., 2020).Therefore, as trade fairs are a highly competitive environment to exhibitors (AUMA -Association of the German Trade Fair Industry, 2017; Maskell, 2014), it is suitable to analyze and verify the entrepreneurial orientation of companies (exhibitors) participating in them.
H2.In the trade fair context, proactiveness contributes positively to the exhibitors' entrepreneurial orientation.
H3.In the trade fair context, risk-taking contributes positively to the exhibitors' entrepreneurial orientation.
H4.In the trade fair context, competitiveness contributes positively to the exhibitors' entrepreneurial orientation.
H5.In the trade fair context, autonomy contributes positively to the exhibitors' entrepreneurial orientation.

Entrepreneurial orientation as a networking determinant
Trade fairs generally attract thousands of experts and businesspeople (buyers/sellers), who can meet up face to face (networking) in the same space and at the same time (Locatelli et al., 2019;Sarmento et al., 2015).One of the great riches of the trade fairs is the possibility to create interactions, relationships, generate networking (Gopalakrishna, Malthouse, & Lawrence, 2019;Kitchen, 2017;Measson & Campbell-Hunt, 2015;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).However, exhibitors need to have tangible and intangible resources that allow them to facilitate interactions and promote close relations with the visitor (Rinallo, Bathelt, & Golfetto, 2017).Innovation is a major resource of the trade fair's attractiveness (Sarmento et al., 2015), but Entrepreneurial Orientation is an important resource for networking development (Jiang, Liu, Fey, & Jiang, 2018;Strenge & Rank, 2018;Yoon et al., 2018) which has never been studied in the trade fair context.Therefore, exhibitors' entrepreneurial orientation can have effects on their network capacity, defined as a "complex organizational capability oriented toward managing business relationships along all their main development stages" (Mitrega, Forkmann, Ramos, Henneberg, 2012, p. 739).In other words, network capability "is the ability to manage and gain benefits from external relationships" (Vinit, Ossi, Joakim, & Mats, 2017, p. 94), for example, customers, institutions, competitors, partners, etc.Thus, it is hypothesized that in the context of the trade fair: H6. Entrepreneurial orientation of the exhibitor has positive effects on their network capability.

Network capability on exhibitor's performance
The interest of the trade fairs is to generate networking and convert contacts into results (Gopalakrishna et al., 2019;Measson & Campbell-Hunt, 2015;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).
Companies need a network of relationships to share their values and objectives, to drive the Entrepreneurial Orientation toward the desired results (Ruiz-Ortega, Parra-Requena, & Garc ıa-Villaverde, 2021).Particularly, network capacity can act as a determinant for company performance (Jiang, et al., 2018;Strenge & Rank, 2018;Yoon et al., 2018).
Performance is a process that aims to match the company's strategies, corporate and functional objectives (Bititci, Carrie, & McDevitt, 1997;Al-Matari, Al-Swidi, & Hanim, 2014).Generally, companies' performance refers to the links between accounting returns, stock market and growth (Vasconcelos & Oliveria, 2018).However, Murugesan, Gayathri, Vasanth, Lingaraja and Marxia (2016) report that a company's performance can be determined by several dimensions: profitability, growth, market value, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, environmental performance, corporate governance and social performance.Abbas, Raza, Nurunnabi, Minai and Bano (2019) include as company's performance factors: profit and sales goals, return on investment (ROI) goals, product quality, customer retention against competitors, reputation, employee turnover and new product development against the competition.Therefore, companies often define and aim to achieve certain goals to create, elevate, improve and sustain superior performance (Abbas et al., 2019;Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000).
In the trade fairs' case, exhibitors can set different objectives: transactional (sales), informational (information sharing), social (relational), symbolic and cultural (Tafesse & Skallerud, 2017).Gopalakrishna and Lilien (1995) indicate as measures of the exhibitor's performance: attraction efficiency index (target visitor); contact efficiency index (with audience visitors); and conversion efficiency index (the ratio of actual sales conversations to the number of visitors who made contact).Menon and Edward (2017) identified five dimensions of the exhibitor's performance: sales performance, information gathering, networking, image building and motivations.Çobano glu and Turaeva (2014) point four measurement factors: image-building performance, sales-related performance, relationship-building performance and information-gathering performance.
From these authors, it can be extracted that exhibitors' performance can be divided into two types: non-sales performance and sales performance (Menon & Edward, 2017).Curiously, trade fairs receive two types of customers/visitors: "Shopper" and "Total Visitors" (Rittichainuwat & Mair, 2012;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).The "Shopper" seeks product/service for future purchase intention."Total Visitors" always want to be informed about new market trends and memorable experiences at trade fairs (Rittichainuwat & Mair, 2012;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).
Thus, in the present study, it is convenient to divide the exhibitor's performance: non-sales performance and sales performance (Menon & Edward, 2017), being that non-sales performance are intangible results such as reputation, information gathering, relationships, etc., and sales performance are tangible results such as sales, profit, return on investment.

INMR 19,1
When it comes to trade fairs, sales do not necessarily have to happen on the spot because the "Shopper" seeks product/service for future purchase intention and exhibitor's performance is a process that does not end at the trade fair (Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).In fact, generally, 1/3 of the exhibitors follow up on contacts after the trade fair (Kitchen, 2017).
Based on the above arguments, the hypotheses that will be tested are as follows: H7. Network capability of the exhibitors has positive effects on their non-sales performance.
H8. Exhibitors' non-sales performance has positive effects on their sales performance.Rittichainuwat and Mair (2012), Sarmento and Farhangmehr (2016) demonstrated that trade fairs receive different visitors so the exhibitors' results can be divided into sales performance and non-sales performance (Kitchen, 2017;Menon & Edward, 2017;Rittichainuwat & Mair, 2012;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).Sarmento and Farhangmehr (2016) reveal that sales performance can happen after the trade fair, as a result of non-sales performance (Kotler & Keller, 2015).Such a sequence informed the theoretical model of this study.

Conceptual model
Figure 1 shows the model and hypothesized relationships.

Methodology
This study focuses on the trade fairs' exhibitors.The questionnaire was prepared and addressed to the marketing and/or sales director of companies participating in trade fairs.A survey-based quantitative approach was adopted to analyze the relationship between the study's variables.

Survey
Survey research is "the collection of information from a sample of individuals through their responses to questions" (Check & Schutt, 2012, p. 160).This type of research allows a variety of methods to recruit participants, collect data and use various methods of analysis such as questionnaires (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2014).
Based on the literature review, a questionnaire was developed (see Table A1 in the Appendix).The instrument had a clear and direct format and comprised two parts, beginning with a presentation of the scope and objectives of the study.
The first part served to measure the constructs.The constructs that make up the conceptual model are: Entrepreneurial orientation and its dimensions (subconstructs-innovativeness; proactiveness; risk-taking; competitiveness; autonomy);

Examination in trade fairs context
Network capability; Exhibitor's sales performance; and Exhibitor's non-sales performance.
The items that measure the different constructs (although adapted to the context) were used from research instruments validated by different authors (Table A1).However, to reinforce the validity of the content, a panel of experts composed of academics and industry practitioners was invited to review the initial items of the questionnaire.The cooperation of these experts was positive and helped to build an appropriate questionnaire for the study.
All variables were measured on five-point Likert scales, ranging from one (1)totally disagree to five (5)totally agree.
The second part contained questions related to the characteristics of the respondent companies such as type of company, size of the company (turnover), the intensity of participation in trade fairs, volume of exports (%) and the company's country of origin.

Data collection
The population of this study was unknown, thus a database of the exhibitors' lists was created from various trade fairs' organizers such as Exponor (Portugal), FIL (Portugal), ExpoSalão-Batalha, as well as business associations such as ATP -Portuguese Textile and Clothing Association; APIMA -Portuguese Association of Furniture and Related Industries; APICCAPS -Portuguese Footwear, Components, Leather Goods Manufacturers' Association; or public business support institutions: IAPMEI -Institute of Support to Small and Medium Enterprises and Innovation; and AICEP -Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade of Portugal.So, data was collected through the database created with companies participating in international trade fairs.The questionnaire was sent by email between 3 rd and 31 st January 2020, addressed to the marketing and/or sales directors of the companies present in the databases, resulting in 362 complete responses.
3.3 Data analysis SPSS 24.0 and Amos 20.0 statistical programs were used for data analysis.This three-step stage was used to validate the scales and examine the dynamic relationships among the constructs of the study.
In the first step, despite them having been validated by previous authors but because of adaptations, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with varimax rotation was used to purify the items.EFA is used to extract the right number of constructs and identify the underlying measurement items (Devellis, 2012).
In the second step, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with maximum likelihood estimation was conducted to validate the measurement scales of the constructs (Hair et al., 2014).Then, reliability and validity measures were tested and structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to test the proposed model and hypotheses.SEM is used to determine if a certain model is valid and allows to associate several measures to a single latent construction (Hair et al., 2014;Marôco, 2014).Finally, the maximum likelihood procedure was used to estimate the measurement model and structural model.In addition, model fit indexes were examined for model fit (Hair et al., 2014).

Sample profile
Descriptive analysis was done to obtain the profile of the respondent companies: 362 complete questionnaires were collected.
The sample size is in accordance with previous studies, for example, Fadda (2018); Kitchen, (2017); Rittichainuwat and Mair (2012); Sarmento and Farhangmehr (2016).In addition, the sample size is also adequate given the proportion of items used (Devellis, 2012).Table 1 provides detailed information about the companies/exhibitors.
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO) and Bartlett's test of sphericity were evaluated to ensure the appropriateness of the data for EFA.
The results show that in general, the KMO coefficient was greater than 0.80 and Bartlett's test was significant at the 0.05 level, indicating the adequacy of the items (Hair et al., 2014).The KMO coefficient was also analyzed for all constructs individually, showing adequate indicators.
Items with factor loadings lower than 0.50 or cross-loaded items were removed (P2 and C4) and the remaining items were factor analyzed again (Hair et al., 2014).So, the total variance explained is greater than 0.710, which exceeds the threshold value of 60%.Therefore, the total validity of the scales is reasonable (Hair et al., 2014).
Finally, Cronbach's alpha was applied to test the reliability of the constructs, as shown in Table 2.The Cronbach's alpha of all constructs is greater than 0.7, but that of the full

Examination in trade fairs context
scale is greater than 0.90.Therefore, AFE results indicate high internal consistency (Hair et al., 2014).

Confirmatory factor analysis
CFA was applied based on the output of EFA using Amos 20.CFA allows assessing the overall model fit for the full measurement model (Hair et al., 2014;Marôco, 2014).Nevertheless, a new analysis of the items was assessed to improve model fit indices.Therefore, based on Modification Index, we analyzed error/cross-loading correlations (Whittaker, 2012) and the items (IN1; IN4; P4; RT2; RT4; C1; A4; NW1; NW5 and ENP4) were excluded because of high error correlations (Whittaker, 2012).Table 3 summarizes the final items and constructs.Through Cronbach's alpha, it is verified that all items are scored in the same directionappropriate reliability (Hair et al., 2014).However, there are two subconstructs (risk-taking 5 0.592; competitiveness 5 0.617) with low Cronbach's alpha.Still, in the general composition of the main construct (entrepreneurial orientation 5 0.848) Cronbach's alpha presents adequate reliability (Hair et al., 2014).Table 3 also shows the mean, which is a measure of central tendency and provides an indication of the average value of a distribution of responses to each item.In the same table, we present the standard deviation (SD) that shows the variation of the mean of each item (Barde & Barde, 2012).A low SD indicates that the data tends to be close to the mean (Barde & Barde, 2012), in this specific case the results are acceptable.
The structural equation allowed to test the hypotheses of relationships as illustrated in Figure 1.Consequently, several indicators were used to assess the model fit: X 2 /DF; CFIcomparative fit index; NFInormed-fit index; TLI -Tucker Lewis index or NNFInonnormed fit index; IFIincremental fit index; GFIgoodness of fit index; AGFIadjusted goodness of fit index; RFIrelative fit index; RMSEAroot mean square error of approximation; PNFIparsimonious normed fit index and PGFIparsimony goodness-offit index.
Based on several authors, the obtained results indicate a model considered to be well adjusted.The indicators demonstrate a great level of unidimensionality and convergent validity.Figure 1 shows the standardized estimation of the conceptual model.
These values are expressed in Table 5, indicating an appropriate level of unidimensionality and convergent validity (Hair et al., 2014).
As we can see in Table 4, all AVE were greater than 0.50, providing additional support for convergent validity (Hair et al., 2014).The composite reliability of all scales was >0.80, providing an appropriate level (Fornell & Larcker, 1981;Hair et al., 2014).In addition, Fornell and Larcker (1981) and Rold an and S anchez-Franco (2012) say that to guarantee discriminant validity, the square root of the AVE measures must be superior to all the correlations among all the constructs.

Structural model
The structural model with all constructs and hypothesized relationships were evaluated.
A graphic presentation of the original findings is shown in Figure 1, with standardized coefficient estimates.It should be noted that when testing H1, H2, H3, H4 and H5, it was applied a second-order CFA because it allows to the assessment of a composite of common factor configuration (Van Riel, Henseler, Kem eny, & Sasovova, 2017).Hence, this operation follows the indications of Fadda (2018) and Yoon et al. (2018) on the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientationinnovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking; competitiveness and autonomy.
In the original estimated model, all hypotheses were supported, as shown in Figure 1 and on the next topic.

Hypotheses test
Kline (2016) affirms that hypothesized directional causal effects or direct effects represent the direct influence of one variable on another variable.So, the direct effect shows that

Summary of results
The purpose of this article is to examine the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on the network and the exhibitor's performance.
The study aimed to analyze the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, network and exhibitor's performance, by proposing and testing a conceptual model of the dynamic relationship among said variables.
Based on the CFA results, the study ensures that the factors innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, competitiveness and autonomy have positive contributions as elements of the entrepreneurial orientation mix, in the trade fair context.The results also demonstrate that entrepreneurial orientation has positive effects on network capability.The exhibitor's performance was divided into non-sale performance and sales performance.Finally, the results verify that network capability has effects on the exhibitor's non-sale performance and non-sale performance has positive effects on the exhibitors' sales performance.Therefore, all hypotheses were supported.

Theoretical contributions
First, this research possibly presents the first study to introduce the concept of entrepreneurial orientation in studies on trade fairs.Although the entrepreneurial orientation concept (Fadda, 2018;Miller, 1983;Miller & Friesen, 1982;Martins & Rialp, 2013;Mthanti & Ojah, 2017;Yoon et al., 2018) previously applied in different contexts, the results of the study prove that the entrepreneurial orientation mix of the exhibitors, based on its five dimensions (innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, competitiveness and autonomy).In addition, the present study shows that entrepreneurial orientation is a useful resource for exhibitors to develop networking (Jiang et al., 2018;Ruiz-Ortega et al., 2021;Strenge & Rank, 2018;Yoon et al., 2018) with a view to obtaining results (Kitchen, 2017;Rittichainuwat & Mair, 2012;Ruiz-Ortega et al., 2021;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).In fact, the results indicate that the exhibitor's performance depends on the network capability and the network capacity depends on the exhibitor's entrepreneurial orientation.
Second, based on the recognized difficulty in measuring exhibitors' performance (Cop and Kara, 2014;Kitchen, 2017), the present study divided the exhibitor's performance into two perspectivessales performance and non-sales performance (Çobano glu & Turaeva, 2014;Menon & Edward, 2017;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016) and assessed an empirical effect between the two perspectives.Thus, it was possible to confirm that sales performance depends on non-sales performance (Kotler & Keller, 2015) and can happen in the post-trade fair phase (Kitchen, 2017;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).INMR 19,1

Managerial implications
The practical implications of this study can be summarized in a process, as shown in Figure 2.
The exhibitor can adopt an entrepreneurial orientation by investing in innovation, adopting a proactive and risk-taking attitude, betting on competitiveness and promoting his employees' autonomy.It must start before the trade fair as the exhibitor should prepare his participation in advance (He et al., 2019;Nayak, 2019;Silva, 2014).Then, based on entrepreneurial orientation, the exhibitor can develop networking, generate bonds and commit (Jiang et al., 2018;Ruiz-Ortega et al., 2021;Strenge & Rank, 2018;Yoon et al., 2018) during the fair.Also, the exhibitor can network with other industry members and customers to increase his reputation, gather information, etc.non-sales performance (Çobano glu & Turaeva, 2014;Menon & Edward, 2017;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016).More so, lead generation is one of the most imperative benefits of trade fairs (Kitchen, 2017).All an exhibitor needs to do is get in touch with these leads right after the trade fair (Kitchen, 2017;Sarmento & Farhangmehr, 2016) and grow the customer basesales performance.
Trade fairs offer an unparalleled opportunity for face-to-face interactions with a wide array of potential customers (Locatelli et al., 2019;Sarmento et al., 2015).
So, based on this study entrepreneurial orientation emerges as a resource or an important catalyst for exhibitors to operate successfully in competitive, uncertain and dynamic environments (Martins & Rialp, 2013;Tajeddini et al., 2020) like trade fairs (AUMA -Association of the German Trade Fair Industry, 2017; Maskell, 2014).

Conclusion, limitations and future research
The main objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on the exhibitor's performance.Eight hypotheses were formulated to achieve this objective: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, H7 and H8.
This research project started from a theoretical foundation developed in previous studies.The research itself found that entrepreneurial orientation can operate as a recipe for companies to operate effectively in a competitive environment such as trade fairs.The study also reveals that entrepreneurial orientation can help a company to develop its network The results which confirm H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 were important contributions to the study, as no previous research had analyzed these relationships in the context of the trade fair.These results highlight innovation, proactivity, risk-taking, competitiveness and autonomy as a mix of important ingredients for the exhibitor's networking.
Additionally, the confirmation of H8 also reveals a new way to evaluate the exhibitor's performance.More than establishing contacts, the company needs to keep them on its radar and interact productively to gain prestige, reputation and strengthen relationships.For that reason, trade fairs become a territory that remains well beyond the event itself, transforming the networking established at the trade fair into intangible assets (nonsales performance) that add competitive advantages capable of generating sales (sales performance).
Regarding the general objective of this study, which was to analyze the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on the exhibitor's performance, the findings are useful and with practical implications, so the objective was achieved.
This research has some limitations that must be considered.First, a study was carried out mainly on Portuguese companies, restricting its generalization.Second, exhibitors' performance was measured based on the exhibitors' level of satisfaction and not on real sales results.
In relation to future research directions, this survey could also be replicated incorporating other countries.Another recommendation is to conduct a study that separately analyzes each dimension of entrepreneurial orientation in a trade fair context.Finally, future studies may relate additional constructs, for example, it would be interesting to study the entrepreneurial orientation of exhibitors toward organizational learning.